Lindsey Harper was 23 months old when she was murdered on July 6, 2003, in Bakersfield, California. Her death was part of a quintuple homicide that also claimed her mother Joanie Harper, her brothers Marques and Marshall, and her grandmother Earnestine Harper. The family was last seen at church that day and their bodies were found in the home two days later; the crime scene showed the victims had been shot and, in some cases, stabbed.

Investigators focused on Vincent Brothers, Joanie Harper’s estranged husband and the children’s father. Brothers had claimed he was in North Carolina visiting his mother, but authorities said they found inconsistencies. Forensic analysis of a rental car he used reportedly turned up insects native to the western United States, a detail investigators said supported the theory he drove back to California and then returned to North Carolina. Brothers was arrested in April 2004; prosecutors presented evidence about the troubled marriage and other investigative findings at trial.

Brothers was convicted of five counts of first-degree murder with special circumstances and sentenced to death. Did anyone who knew the Harper family notice signs of trouble in the years before July 2003?